The Shadow of War by Jack Murray (read this if TXT) 📕

Matthias again. He was now lessworried about cheating than the obvious smell emanating from the field. Therest of the men laughed. All were now feeling slightly more sympathetic towardsMatthias. This was high risk with the added disadvantage that it looked verymuch like the field had recently been spread with manure. The ripe farmyard smellof cows and pigs permeated the air.

‘Look,’ pointed out Manfred, ‘the enemybarrage is too heavy. Do you want to be hauled off the field before we evenhave a chance to engage the enemy?’

The silent reaction told its own story.

‘Fine,’ continued Manfred. ‘We will rollover and over on the ground in order to reach a new assault position. Yes,you’ll get a little dirty. Follow me.’

With that, he flung himself onto the dung,covering the field, and began to roll over and over. With rifles pressedbetween their knees, tight to their chests they rolled, cursing and swearing asthey went. The escarpment was half a kilometre ahead. Behind it lay ‘the enemy’.To reach them they had to scale the small farm fence then climb the rock face. Thiswould take them to the rear of the defence position.

Manfred led the way. For the next fifteenminutes they crawled through the mud, the mulch and the manure. The rainpersisted, beating down on their tin helmets with a metronomic pulse. Theconditions made progress slow. However, pointed out Manfred to his comrades, itwould provide a distraction for their enemy. This was partly out of hope, andpartly out of a desire to keep their spirits up.

They finally arrived at the perimeter fenceclosest to the defender encampment. One by one they hopped over the fence andsprinted towards the escarpment, praying they would not be seen.

Scaling the rock face presented a separatechallenge. Although it was no more than seven or eight metres in height, Matthiasstill looked at it with a degree of anxiety. Manfred, as leader, selectedhimself to go first.

The first few minutes at the base of theescarpment was spent looking for a route that might be scalable. Finally, heidentified what he hoped was the safest approach. He felt nervous, however. Bynow he was acutely aware that they were in a great position, far in advance ofhis other comrades. But they had cheated. There would be consequences, he feltsure. And then there was the escarpment which seemed more like a cliff everytime he looked up. Now, there was a real risk of injury if he fell. And ifanyone fell, he knew it would be his responsibility. Manfred felt very nervous.

The rock face was solid. Manfred put thegun over his back and began the ascent. The main problem was less theavailability of footholds than the weather conditions. He whispered down to hiscompanions, ‘Be careful. It’s every bit as slippery as it looks.’

Manfred made his way up carefully, rock byrock, foothold by foothold. After a few minutes he reached the top. He leanedover the edge and used his rifle to help pull up the men following him.

-

From a vantage point at the headquarters ofthe attackers, Drexler, standing with the colonel, observed the action throughhis binoculars with a smile on his face. He pointed out what was happening tothe colonel and soon all of the senior soldiers were watching in fascination atthe flanking move led by Manfred.

‘Very good,’ commented the colonel. ‘Who isleading those boys?’

‘Brehme, sir,’ replied Drexler. ‘If youremember, he was one of the boys that ran for nearly two hours on the paradeground.’

‘Ah yes, I remember him. Interesting isn’tit? Every two or three months someone has the same idea. Until then we seethese boys get mown down like sheep going to slaughter. Keep an eye on him,Drexler.’

‘I am, sir,’ confirmed Drexler.

-

Manfred’s platoon made good progress up theescarpment. Within a few minutes they arrived at the top. Matthias was the lastto attempt the ascent. His first effort was humiliating. He fell within thefirst two metres. Manfred was frustrated by this but, equally, recognised hisfriend was trying his best. He ordered the man in front of Matthias to stay onthe ridge which ran along the middle of the rockface. It presented a goodfoothold and allowed the man to help Matthias by giving him a rifle to holdonto. At the top of the escarpment, the rest of the men and Manfred could seethe defenders rear a few hundred metres up ahead. Between them and thedefenders lay a clump of trees.

‘Make for the trees, they’ll give uscover,’ whispered Manfred, before realising there was no point in doing sogiven the noise of shelling half a kilometre away. ‘You all smell by the way’.It was true, their uniforms were encrusted with foul-smelling filth from thefield.

‘Good camouflage, sir,’ pointed out Willi.

Sir.

Willi had said ‘sir’. Manfred liked thesound of it and silently thanked Willi for his unintended praise. He and theother recruits began to crawl laterally at first and then forward. There was atleast one hundred metres of open space before they reached the trees.

The spirits of the group were raised whenMatthias finally appeared at the top of the rockface and crawled forward tomeet them.

‘Sorry for keeping you waiting. Have wecaptured them yet?’

The group laughed and then started toprogress towards the clump of trees. It took a little over minutes to cover thedistance.

‘Nearly there,’ said Manfred. ‘Keep yourheads down.’

Once the clump of trees was directlybetween Manfred and the defence position, Manfred and the rest of the men stoodup and sprinted for cover. All of them, around twenty, were now out in theopen.

A few metres from the trees, and still outin the open ground, around a dozen defenders stepped out from the clump andpointed their rifles at Manfred. The group was led bya familiar face.

‘Hello, my friend,’ said Gerhardtwith a smile. ‘Going anywhere in particular?’

Manfred’s face fell when he sawwho it was. Just behind Gerhardt was Lothar. His grin, if anything, was evenwider. Then, with a rueful smile, Manfred said, ‘How did you guess?’

‘Disobey orders? Catch theenemy unaware? I’d have done the same so I guessed that you would try to do thesame. Oh, and give us your weapons and put your hands up.’

At this point two officialsarrived to